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Gris-Gris

To: alt.lucky.w
From: lrdleolido@aol.com (LrdLeoLido)
Subject: Re: Gris-Gris (was: Come to Me Oil) 
Date: 29 Sep 1999 06:19:23 GMT

>Gris-gris is a term i have only encountered among the Frech-Creole and
>Caribbean people. It crops up in the U.S.A. in New Orleans, where
>Haitian refugees settled after the slave revolt in Haiti in the early
>19th century. Until recently, when it was popularlized through music and
>other mass-media, the term gris-gris was not encountered in the general
>practice of conjure or hoodoo among African-Americans in the U.S.A.  
>
>I have been told that gris-gris means "grey-grey" in French, although i
>suspect it may derive from a sound-alike word in some African language,
>for there is nothing about it that is "grey." Perhaps a scholar of
>African languaes has an opinion????

As I understand it, "gris-gris" does indeed mean "grey-grey" in French, but the
meaning is that it is double-grey.  Negatives in African languages are
cumulative, so it means "really grey."

I was told this was because it's believed that grey magick is stronger than
either black or white, combining as it does the power of both, using the power
of a black magick charm for a white magick end or vice versa.  Certainly fits 
with what I've seen of most hoodoo charms, since they combine elements of both
sorts of magick.

Kevin

http://www.sff.net/people/Kevin.A.Murphy

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